James C. Vlahakis

Attorney

James Vlahakis brings over twenty years of experience to Atlas Consumer
Law. As a former defense attorney, James has defended corporations in
numerous types of consumer-based class actions.

In James’ twenty-plus years as a defense attorney, he litigated high
profile civil rights cases as well as defended hundreds of consumer-based
class action. For example, Mr. Vlahakis defended the first wave of “junk
fax” cases that were filed pursuant to the Telephone Consumer Protection
Act (“TCPA”). James has also defeated cellular telephone based
TCPA class actions and has even
decertified a certified TCPA class action. James also filed one of the first successful
Petitions For Declaratory Relief before the Federal Communications Commission,
which led the FCC to grant a waiver to his client. James has also litigated
countless consumer claims brought pursuant to the Fair Debt Collections
Practices Act.

After close to twenty years in the trenches, James is using his vast experience
to help aggrieved consumers, with a focus on litigating class action based
TCPA and FDCPA lawsuits. Additionally, James is representing consumers
in data breach and privacy based class actions. For example, James led
the pack in 2017 by filing a trio of lawsuits against Apple Inc., Facebook
Inc., and Uber Technologies.

James is a member of a team of lawyer who have been appointed by the presiding
judge in a proposed class action against Apple Inc.,
In re Apple Inc. Device Performance Litigation, 18-MD-2827, which alleges that Apple purposefully slowed down older model
iPhones with nefarious software updates to induce consumers to purchase
new phones. James filed suit the day after the new broke and was profiled
on ABC 7-Chicago, WGN-TV. In a December 21, 2017, story that was published
hours after the lawsuit was filed, the Chicago Sun Time wrote that “Apple
violated customers’ loyalty, forcing many to fork out the money
for a new phone.” The article quoted James as saying:

“Corporations have to realize that people are sophisticated and that
when people spend their hard-earned dollars on a product they expect it
to perform as expected,” he said. “Instead, Apple appears
to have obscured and concealed why older phones were slowing down.”

In the days and weeks after this lawsuit was filed, James tirelessly responded
to hundreds of phone calls, emails and submissions from aggrieved consumers
from throughout the United States and around the world who wanted to join
the suit against Apple.

With regard to
In re Uber Technologies, Inc., Data Security Breach Litigation, James began to investigate and draft his clients’ privacy based
claims against Uber before news broke that Uber had hidden an earlier
data breach from riders and consumers. When the news broke, James returned
early from an outing with his two sons to finalize and file the case of
Harang, et al., v. Uber Technologies, et al. Unlike the two dozen data breach lawsuits that were filed, the
Harang v. Uber case highlights that Uber has hidden from riders the fact that so-called
“anonymized” rider data can be reversed engineered to identify
the starting point and drop off points of riders. The lawsuit also alleges
that Uber’s Apple based app. utilized a hidden exception which may
have allowed Uber to capture data from rider’s smartphones which,
if true, would have exceeding the type of data necessary for the ride-share
app. to function. James intends to resist Uber and Apple’s efforts
to force individual arbitrations of Harang and other similar cases.

And as to Facebook, James filed the case of
Comforte, et al. v. Facebook, Inc., et al. days before Facebook finally admitted to having user data improperly mined
by third-party apps. James chose to file suit after he reviewed 2011 and
2012 audits of Facebook by the Ireland based Data Protection Commission
where the audits pointed to the vulnerability of user data to nefarious
third-party apps. Facebook ignored and downplayed these concerns. Of the
sixty proposed class actions that we filed against Facebook,
Comforte was the only case to focus on these, and largely unheeded prior audits.
Additionally, as an early filer, James also chose to rely on well-vetted
new stories published by The Guardian, a United Kingdom based new organization,
rather than cower before Facebook’s lawyers who had threatened to
sue The Guardian for libel.

Notable Cases and Accolades:

As a former defense attorney, James defended governmental officials in
numerous high-profile civil rights lawsuits involving wrongful death claims,
excessive force and false arrest. In many of these cases, James served
as a specially appointed States Attorney or as a specially appointed Assistant
Attorney General. For example, James successfully defended the Illinois
Department of Human Services and a private corporation in a federal class
action brought by the ACLU on behalf of a class of individuals committed
by the State of Illinois pursuant to the Sexually Violent Persons Act.
James’ clients prevailed in comprehensive, “landmark”
ruling in the case of
Hargett v. Adams. In a 2008 Chicago Daily Law Bulletin publication which honored James
as being one of “forty lawyers under forty” to watch for,
one of leaders of the treatment program, described Vlahakis' "ability
to quickly grasp the intricacies of mental health treatment" as "phenomenal.”
In the same publication, attorney Daniel Dyslin praised James’ demeanor
despite him facing “years of earth scorching discovery." According
to Mr. Dyslin:

“Particularly impressive is James' ability to maintain, what
I can only describe as, confident control over the litigation. Never daunted
by the odds, it is in face of greatest adversity that James rallies the
strongest. He is rock solid in his representation and is well-respected
amongst his colleagues."

In a first-of-its-kind case, James reversed a district court ruling which
had held that a privately employed psychologist was not entitled to the
dismissal of a case on the basis of the defense of qualified immunity.
In reversing the district court, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in
Sain v. Wood held that the underlying facts did not demonstrate the existence of a
constitutional violation, and held that the psychologist acted within
the bounds of accepted professional judgment. This case was notable for
the fact that the psychologist was able to assert qualified immunity despite
being employed by private contractor with the State of Illinois. In a
2008 Chicago Daily Law Bulletin publication which honored Mr. Vlahakis
and others, Barry Alperts, the senior partner opposing Mr. Vlahakis in
this case said the following:

“Vlahakis exemplifies the characteristics that remind us, and the
public, of who we are and what we stand for as lawyers. No doubt he is
destined for great accomplishments professionally in the years to come.”

James defended a handful of police officials in a series of high-profile
torture and wrongful conviction cases brought by attorney Jon Loevy, of
Chicago's firm of Loevy & Loevy and other top-notch civil rights
attorneys. Close to a dozen law firms were involved where many of the
defendants invoked the Fifth Amendment. In a 2008 Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
publication, Loevy described James’ involvement as follows:

“What impressed me most about Mr. Vlahakis was that was always able
to maintain professionalism and even temperament no matter how 'hot'
the proceedings. This was a case where passions and emotions ran high,
but Mr. Vlahakis was invariably able to maintain a professional tone.
His presence was invaluable in ensuring the case did not blow up from
the sheer pressure of it all."

"Mr. Vlahakis was tenacious in strategy, well-versed in law, and gracious
and professional to all other counsel witnesses. In short, Mr. Vlahakis
was, and still is, a lawyer's lawyer."

James is thankful for, and humbled by the comments of his former clients
and opposing counsel, and hopes to live true to these observations as
he embarks on the second phase of his career – where his goal is
to zealously and ethically represent consumers who have been mistreated
by corporate defendants and governmental officials.

Law School: Loyola University Chicago School of Law,J.D., 1995
Undergraduate School: Michigan State University, B.A., 1992

Bar Admissions:

Illinois

Michigan

U.S. District Court, Northern, Southern and Central Districts of Illinois

U.S. District Court, Northern and Southern District of Indiana

U.S. District Court, Northern and Central Districts of California

U.S. District Court, District of Colorado

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan

U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Coaching, playing and tweeting about Soccer. Attending opening night or
day viewings of original and recent Star Wars franchise movies. Collecting
rare vinyl records to play on vintage equipment.

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